No copays, easier pills may reduce blood pressureCHICAGO (AP) — New research suggests giving patients easier-to-take medicine and no-copay medical visits can help drive down high blood pressure, a major contributor to poor health and untimely deaths nationwide. Those efforts were part of a big health care provider’s eight-year program, involving more than 300,000 patients with high blood pressure. At the beginning, less than half had brought their blood pressure under control. That increased...

US weighs pros, cons of cutting some aid to Egypt WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration, undertaking a major review of U.S. relations with Egypt, edged closer to a decision Tuesday about curtailing some of America’s $1.5 billion in annual aid after the Egyptian military’s crackdown on supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi. Top administration officials met at the White House to review the possibility of cutting military or economic aid to Egypt, a longtime U.S. ally and the most p...

Judge to announce Manning’s sentence WednesdayFORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — A military judge said she’ll announce on Wednesday the sentence for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who gave reams of classified information to WikiLeaks. Army Col. Denise Lind said Tuesday she was still deliberating but she was confident she would have a sentence by Wednesday morning. “At 10 a.m. tomorrow I will announce the sentence,” Lind said about 2 1/2 hours into her deliberations. Manning faces up to 90 years in prison...

San Diego mayor back in lawsuit settlement talks SAN DIEGO (AP) — San Diego’s embattled mayor on Tuesday spent a second day in settlement talks over a sexual harassment lawsuit against him, as petitions circulated to recall the former congressman who has been besieged by allegations from more than a dozen women. City Council President Todd Gloria and Councilman Kevin Faulconer confirmed that Mayor Bob Filner has been present at the talks involving the lawsuit filed by his former communicatio...

Survey: Health insurance costs outpace wage gains Workers saw a modest rise in the average cost of employer-sponsored health insurance this year, but they’re probably not overwhelmed with relief. Coverage costs still are climbing faster than wages. That means, in many cases, a bigger portion of the average paycheck is sliced off for insurance instead of being deposited into employee bank accounts. Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family coverage climbed nearly 4 percent this year to top...

Judge approves Kodak plan to exit bankruptcy NEW YORK (AP) — Kodak doesn’t look a whole lot like it did when it filed for bankruptcy protection last year, but its executives and investors are hoping for a picture-perfect future. Many of its products and services are gone, including the camera-making business that made it famous more than a century ago. Also gone are scores of workers, manufacturing facilities, supply contracts and millions of dollars in investments. On Tuesday, U.S. Bank...

Doctor: Marathon suspect was shot through face BOSTON (AP) — Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been shot through the face and had a fractured skull, wounds to his lower extremities and bone injuries on his left hand when he was caught hiding in a boat in a suburban backyard, according to the surgeon who treated him. The most severe injury was from a bullet that appeared to enter through the left inside of his mouth and exit the lower section of his face on the left side...

FBI works to train police on mass killing response SALISBURY, Md. (AP) — Two men stand anxiously at a classroom entrance and another lies seriously wounded beside a wall outside. “Don’t come down here, I’m telling you — I’ll kill ‘em,” a man inside the classroom shouts to officers snaking down the corridor with guns drawn. A brief attempt at negotiations quickly fizzles as the officers approach the room, yell to the men inside to get down and take out the gunman in a swift firefight. The drill...

Vintage Chevy auction to deal in low-mileage gems PIERCE, Neb. (AP) — Seventeen years have passed since Ray Lambrecht closed his Chevrolet dealership, a small-town operation in northeast Nebraska with a big and valuable secret. For decades, the owner of the Lambrecht Chevrolet Co. in Pierce held on to new cars and trucks that didn’t sell right away. He stashed them in warehouses, at his farm and in other spots around the town he worked in for 50 years. Now, his automotive nest egg — about 500...

20-year-old charged in Georgia school shooting DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — A gunman opened fire with an assault rifle Tuesday at officers who shot back at an Atlanta-area elementary school, a police chief said, with dramatic overhead television footage capturing the young students racing out of the building, being escorted by teachers and police to safety. No one was injured. Just a week into the new school year, more than 800 students in pre-kindergarten to fifth grade were evacuated from Ronald ...

More crews arrive to help battle Idaho wildfireHAILEY, Idaho (AP) — More people were forced from their homes outside the posh central Idaho ski town of Ketchum as a wildfire stoked by strong winds made a push to the north. The number of residences evacuated by the blaze rose to more than 2,300 by Saturday evening. But despite the adverse conditions and extreme fire behavior, some progress was made on the Beaver Creek Fire's south end, where crews conducted mop-up along the borders of black...

More crews arrive to help battle Idaho wildfire HAILEY, Idaho (AP) — A wildfire stoked by strong winds made a push to the north Saturday and forced more people from their homes outside the posh central Idaho ski town of Ketchum, bringing the number of residences evacuated by the blaze to more than 2,300. Despite the adverse conditions and extreme fire behavior, some progress was made on the Beaver Creek Fire’s south end, where crews conducted mop-up along the borders of blackened foothills ...

Ga. man faces trial in killing of baby in stroller BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — It was a tiny bullet that took the short life of Antonio Santiago. He had learned to walk, but not yet talk, when he was killed March 21, six weeks after his first birthday. He was strapped in his stroller, out for a walk with his mother a few blocks from their apartment near the Georgia coast, when someone shot the boy between the eyes with a .22-caliber bullet the size of a garden pea. The teenager charged as the shoote...

5 decades later, some JFK probe files still sealed Five decades after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot and long after official inquiries ended, thousands of pages of investigative documents remain withheld from public view. The contents of these files are partially known — and intriguing — and conspiracy buffs are not the only ones seeking to open them for a closer look. Some serious researchers believe the off-limits files could shed valuable new light on nagging mysteries of the as...

Ind. team leads fight against child pornography INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — In a cluttered office cubicle in a nondescript building on Indianapolis’ derelict east side, a man with rolled-up shirt sleeves scans email attachments of videos that depict startlingly young children being sexually tormented in ways that can make even federal judges weep. Detective Kurt Spivey is trying to find the people who record or collect such images. He has 30 days to locate as many as he can. After that, the trail c...

Who’s jumping through which 2016 hoops WASHINGTON (AP) — Get your face on TV and write a book: Check. Start meeting the big money people: Check. Visit Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina — Israel, too: Check. Deny any of this has to do with running for president: Check. For politicians planning or tempted to run for the presidency in 2016, the to-do list is formidable. What’s striking is how methodically most of them are plowing through it while they pretend nothing of the sort is ...

Naturally Grown: An alternative label to organic SCHAGHTICOKE, N.Y. (AP) — Justine and Brian Denison say they adhere to all the growing practices required for organic certification, yet if they label their beans and tomatoes “organic” at the farmer’s market, they could face federal charges and $20,000 or more in fines. Because the Denisons chose not to seek organic certification by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Denison Farm, which has been under organic management for more than 20 ...

Egypt challenges Obama’s Arab Spring philosophy WASHINGTON (AP) — As Arab Spring democracy uprisings spread across the Middle East, President Barack Obama’s response to the political unrest has been to voice support for people seeking representative governments but limit the role the United States will play to shape those efforts. The president’s philosophy of limited engagement is facing perhaps its toughest test in Egypt, where the nation’s first democratically elected president was ouste...

Philly schools begin rehiring after $50M promise PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The nearly broke Philadelphia schools will open on schedule next month thanks to $50 million in emergency aid. But will they be worth going to? That’s the question parents are asking as the district begins to rehire about 1,000 pink-slipped workers, from assistant principals to guidance counselors. Many say the cash infusion is a paltry bandage on a district hemorrhaging red ink, and that the buildings will simply be shells...

SF Bay Area building demolition fuels quake study HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) — It took just seconds for a 13-story building overlooking San Francisco Bay to implode, spewing smoke and chunks of concrete as it crumbled into a heap of rubble. But U.S. Geological Survey scientist Rufus Catchings was marveling less at the visual spectacle than what he could feel with his feet. As the building collapsed, the vibrations Catchings noted told him that a novel experiment to study one of the most dangerous f...